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Setting
Definition of Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like" or "as," but can also... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often... read full definition
Act 1, Scene 5
Explanation and Analysis—Celia's Beauty:
In Act 1, Scene 5, Mosca reports back to Volpone that Corvino has a wife, Celia, of incalculable beauty. In a series of similes that rely on the imagery of light and whiteness, he relates her magnificence to his master:
O, sir, the wonder,
The blazing star of Italy! a wench
O’the first year! a beauty ripe as harvest!
Whose skin is whiter than a swan all over!
Than silver, snow, or lilies! a soft lip,
Would tempt you to eternity of kissing!
And flesh that melteth in the touch to blood!
Bright as your gold, and lovely as your gold!
Everything about Celia, in Mosca’s view, deserves a superlative description. The literary devices he uses to power this description—similes that compare Celia to a ripe harvest, to the feathers of a swan, to sparkling silver, snow, and a lily flower, as well as (most importantly) gold itself—all hinge on the brilliance of the objects: everything Mosca mentions is bright, sparkly, or otherwise glowing. In this way, the figurative language in this passage draws heavily on visual imagery.
The final comparison, between Celia and gold, is the most consequential. Mosca speaks to Volpone in the language he understands (the language of wealth), and he knows that gold is the thing that Volpone prizes over all other treasures. This description of Celia launches Volpone’s obsession with her that lasts for the greater part of the play, but the audience knows from this first moment of introduction that Volpone does not love Celia so much as he wants to possess her in the manner of his other treasures. In this way, Jonson reveals—and perhaps even critiques, with his satire—the way in which men could covet women as objects rather than people.
Related Themes:
Act 2, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Miracle Medicine:
In Act 2, Scene 2, Volpone—disguised as a mountebank, a kind of medicine salesperson—tries to sell Celia a medicinal powder even more "valuable" than his elixir. In a flowery sales-speech befitting a peddler, he uses a set of similes to convey its value:
Here is a powder concealed in this paper of which, if I should speak to the worth, nine thousand volumes were but as one page, that page as a line, that line as a word: so short is this pilgrimage of man (which some call life) to the expressing of it. Would I reflect on the price? Why, the whole world were but as an empire, that empire as a province, that province as a bank, that bank as a private purse to the purchase of it.
The point of these similes is to evade any actual description of the powder and its value—instead, Volpone describes it as beyond description: even the most succinct assessment would be infinitely grand; it is worth practically the entire purchasing power of the world (if the world were like a private purse for an extravagantly wealthy buyer).
Volpone’s portrayal of his powder betrays his worldview: everything is for sale and is his for the taking. As the second simile suggests, what is the world but a treasure vault, waiting for someone to exploit its riches? Consumed by his greed, Volpone sees himself as just the person for the task—starting with his unsuspecting suitors in Venice.
Related Themes:
Act 5, Scene 7
Explanation and Analysis—For Whom the Meal Ends:
In Act 5, Scene 12, justice—at last—arrives for Volpone's cast of ne'er-do-wells. After the court has heard the cases of Volpone, Mosca, Corbaccio, Voltore, and Corvino, the Avocatori is able to pass definitive judgement on the characters. After the 1st Avocatore announces their sentences, he concludes the trial with a simile:
And these are all your judgements.
[…]
Which may not be revoked. Now
you begin,
When crimes are done and past, and to be
punished,
To think what your crimes are. Away with them!
Let all see these vices thus rewarded,
Take heart, and love to study ‘em. Mischiefs feed
Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.
The avocatore's simile builds upon the comparisons made throughout the play between the characters and various wild animals. "Mischiefs"—and, by implication, the mischievous—are "like beasts" feeding on their unsuspecting victims until they become "fat" with their rewards. The ultimate reward for this behavior, however, is the deliverance of justice that undoes these characters—at the end of it all, they finally begin to bleed as the court punishes them for their actions. With this final declaration, the avocatori outline a brutal "circle of life" for Venetian society, in which criminals feast on their victims until they themselves have been devoured by justice.
